Samsung's Galaxy S3 beats Apple's iPhone

Samsung Galaxy S3's best-selling position is likely to be short-lived

South Korean electronics firm Samsung's Galaxy S3 has outsold Apple's iPhone 4S for the first time, becoming the world's best-selling smartphone, says research firm Strategy Analytics.

Samsung sold 18 million models, compared with Apple's 16.2 million sales, in the third quarter of 2012.

The Galaxy S3 "has proven wildly popular with consumers and operators," said Strategy Analytics' Neil Mawston.

However, Apple's new iPhone 5 is widely expected to reclaim the top sales spot.

Strong Galaxy smartphone sales helped Samsung report record profits in the three months to September. Net profit was 6.5tn won ($5.9bn; £3.7bn), up 91% from a year earlier.

But analysts say that one reason Samsung's phone was able to wrest the top sales spot from Apple's iPhone 4 was because many customers were waiting for the iPhone 5, which was launched during the third quarter.

The Apple iPhone 5 has already got off to a solid start and "we expect the new iPhone 5 to out-ship Samsung's Galaxy S3 in the coming fourth quarter", said Neil Mawston.

"Apple should soon reclaim the title of the world's most popular smartphone model," he added.

Legal struggle

Samsung and its rival Apple have been locked in a series of ongoing legal battles over patent infringement claims in various countries.

In October, sales bans in the US on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus phone and its Galaxy 10.1 tablet computer were lifted, in a blow to Apple.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, a US court awarded Apple $1.05bn (£652m) in damages, after ruling several of its software and design technologies had been infringed by Samsung.

Samsung has challenged that verdict and called for a retrial.

Analysts say that given the tremendous growth potential of the sector, the two firms' legal battle is likely to continue.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

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Avoiding Unnecessary Charges While Traveling Internationally With An iPhone

Unfortunately, consuming data while roaming tends to get extremely expensive very quickly. Recently, U.S. carriers have become a lot more reasonable with data plans, but it’s far from perfect. Usually, you pay about $25 for 100 MBs of data. In comparison, Verizon charges $70 for 4,000 MBs of data in the U.S. So 100 MBs tend to get used up quickly, especially if you use media-intensive apps like Instagram, Facebook, or Path.

In addition, international calling and texting plans tend to be really expensive, even if you aren’t actually trying to use them. At least with AT&T, you are charged when someone leaves you a voicemail, regardless if you wait until returning home to listen to the voicemail. To me, that’s crazy. If someone leaves you a 10-minute voicemail, you pay $10.

There are some small settings on your iPhone you can change to protect yourself from unnecessary charges while traveling. Here are the ones I toggle when going out of the country:

Click Here to read the complete step by step instructions @ techcrunch.com

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Which is better iOS or Android?

I prefer android over apple for the reason that it is open-source, which means the majority of the applications (apps) are free, and you get more revolutionary and cutting edge apps, and do things that are rarely available on even a jail broken iphone.
The android market already has 250,000 apps- closing in on apple 500,000; some say it will surpass it before the year is over. Also any popular iphone game or game adaptation can be found in the android market for free.
Another great thing about android is that if you dont like something (keyboard, homescreen, etc.) it can easily be swapped without jail-breaking, unlike the iphones one-size-fits-all approach.

Despite the false rumors, The iphone is also just as, if not more, vulnerable to viruses as android .
http://www.pcworld.com/article/183763/ex…

Other features only on android
** Turn-by-turn voice GPS
** Better and larger screen
** No need to connect to computer to sync
** Here is a big one, add an sd card of whatever size
** Live wallpapers
** widgets
** 4g
** More customizable
** More powerful hardware
** Flash support, watch ALL the online videos

Apple lovers that say that the iphone is made of better quality material? They don’t realize that Samsung, an android phone maker, supply’s the screen, processor and memory for apple devices, so android has the advantage here.
The iphone is pretty, but not durable, drop it once- it breaks, all that glass around it? That was honestly a mistake. Android manufactures clearly saw that, and decided to do with something a little more durable.

And the iphones “retina display” is a huge scam. By definition a ‘retina display’ is one where the human eye cannot distinguish individual pixels. But this is determined by several factors; most important being the distance between the screen and your eyes. The iphones retina distance is 12in, move any closer than that- say 7in and it’s no longer a “retina screen” because your eyes can now see the pixels, by that same token, if I move my android phone back, to say 16-17in, amazingly, it becomes a retina screen as well! (feel free to google this)

Also apple never invents anything, they are never “the first”. All they do is steal old technology, give it a fresh coat of paint and mass advertise it as “magical” and “innovating”, thus fooling the mass of the population into believing that apple offers cutting edge technology, that in fact has been around for quite a few years.
So instead of innovating, apple actually hinders technology- after 4 years they still have low-power single core phones, while android, an example of technology in overdrive, has rumored that, after their second year, the release of quad core phones that will surpass even some desktop computers in shear processing power. (now any 2011 android is smoother and faster than the iphone)

Apple should now feel pretty worried; android has passed it in market share
http://www.businessinsider.com/android-i…

Then apple panics and sues
http://www.dailytech.com/Google+ExCEO+Ap…
The funny thing is that apple can’t sue for being the first touchscreen or tablet, because they weren’t,(Nokia fist touch screen, “archos” first tablet) so instead they sue for much more relevant things like, “the rounded icon corners” and “having a flat screen” or “the square shape of the phone”……..

To top it all, if you’ve seen apples 2011 presentation, they blatantly copied over five "new" features that were previously on android.
http://androidandme.com/2011/06/news/fiv…
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/06/06/app…
1. Notification bar
2. Twitter integration
3. No need to connect to PC to sync
4. Launch apps from lock screen
5. Tabbed browsing

And not only they copied, but apple didn’t even bother to improve, or change some of them in any way- some even have LESS features than their android counter parts, it’s basically a cheap imitation with the ever-popular iphone skin.
According to Steve jobs, these "revolutionary" new technologies that android users had since 2007 will be available on IOS5, and it would not surprise me to see some more android features from 2008 on IOS6.But the truly sad part is that due to apples marketing, in a few months, apple lovers will really think that apple invented those features and call android the copycats…yet again.

by Wheatly

Source: Yahoo Answers

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809 Area Code Scam (Don't Ever Dial Area Code 809)

This long distance phone scam causes consumers to inadvertently incur high charges on their phone bills. Consumers usually receive a message telling them to call a phone number with an 809, 284, 649, or 876 area code in order to collect a prize, find out information about a sick relative, etc. The caller assumes the number is a typical three-digit U.S. area code; however, the caller is actually connected to a phone number outside the United States, often in Canada or the Caribbean, and charged international call rates. Unfortunately, consumers don't find out that they have been charged higher international call rates until they receive their bill.

If you call from the UK.U.S or Canada , you will apparently be charged a minimum of 

$2425 per-minute.

And you'll also get a long recorded message. The point is, they will try to keep you on the phone as long as possible to increase the charges.

 AT&T VERIFIES IT'S TRUE:http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=6045 

SNOPES VERIFIES IT'S TRUE:http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/809.asp

AT&T recommends the following tips to help avoid the 809 area code scam:

• Return calls to familiar numbers only. As a general rule, return calls from numbers that contain familiar or recognizable area codes. You may call your directory assistance or long distance operator to check the area code location.
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• If the carrier with whom the charge originated does not agree to resolve the problem, contact AT&T. AT&T will work with you and the carrier to help remove fraudulent charges from the phone bill.

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The call centre that knows when you're angry

The new technology could be used in automated call centres to route enquiries differently according to the anxiety level of the caller.

Scientists at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Universidad de Granada (UGR) said “the system created can be used to automatically adapt the dialogue to the user’s situation, so that the machine’s response is adequate to the person’s emotional state.”

“Thanks to this new development, the machine will be able to determine how the user feels and how the caller intends to continue the dialogue”, claimed one of its creators, David Grill, a professor in UC3M’s Computer Science Department.

The researchers looked closely at the anger, boredom and doubt that people often experience when talking to automated call centre voices. By examining tone of voice, the speed of speech, the duration of pauses, the energy of the voice signal and up to a total of sixty different ‘acoustic parameters’, they have produced computer models of what people sound like according to the emotions they are feeling.

The authors of the study, which has been published in the Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, said it is important that the machine be able to predict how the rest of the dialogue is going to continue. "To that end, we have developed a statistical method that uses earlier dialogues to learn what actions the user is most likely to take at any given moment", they claimed.

Source: The Telegraph

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Surrounded by surveillance: Is everything spying on you?

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The ACLU reported on the "widespread tracking of citizen's movements" via the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs). "It has now become clear that this technology, if we do not limit its use, will represent a significant step toward the creation of a surveillance society in the United States." The ACLU does, of course, regard GPS tracking without a warrant as intrusive on privacy, but license plate reader "technology is rapidly approaching the point where it could be used to reconstruct the entire movements of any individual vehicle." Some might call that paranoid, but the ACLU said of such accusations, that it is always "amazed by the speed and consistency with which our worst fears for these kinds of technologies turn into reality."

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Tablet demand triples ahead of holidays, two out of three buyers want Apple’s iPad

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